


Rather You Than a Heap of Gold

by Dreadfort



Category: Sherlock (TV), Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Dragons, Friendship, Gen, Interviews, John as a Dragon, News Reporter, Partnership, Pre Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreadfort/pseuds/Dreadfort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reporter is commissioned by an unknown person in the government to interview two individuals for an article in the paper. One is a consulting detective. The other has a 25m wingspan. Neither are thrilled at the prospect of her arrival.</p><p>Includes illustration.</p><p>INCOMPLETE AND ON HIATUS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've tried to write this so that anyone without knowledge of the Temeraire books can follow without a problem. However if you do become confused, please let me know so I can fix it. (Also; read the books, they're fantastic.)
> 
> WIP
> 
> Illustration by me.

 

 

“How long is this going to take?” John sighed to Sherlock, attempting discretion but as an eleven ton middleweight combat dragon, this was difficult.

“If you hadn’t eaten that stupid cow we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Sherlock replied, unbuckling John’s flight harness.

“It’s your fault I ate it, you told me I could! And then Earl whats-his-name had a fit –“ John shifted his wings so Sherlock could access the buckles behind his forelegs. Two ground crew men had run over to help, but Sherlock waved them away impatiently.

“And your deductions about his wife and son really didn’t help either,” John continued. Sherlock undid the last strap and pulled the harness off John’s back, letting it crash undignified to the ground. He motioned for the ground crew to pick it up, and took a large cloth from the smaller crewman with a tic tac addiction and overbearing mother.

Using John’s foreleg as a platform, Sherlock vaulted onto his back and began rubbing the dragon down. John stretched in contentment, wings unfurling as Sherlock worked his muscles.

“I guess we have to be thankful for Mycroft’s intervention,” John muttered. “Even if it does mean we have to do this stupid interview.”

“He’s under some delusion that a sensationalist article in The Sun will fortify human/dragon politics,” Sherlock said.

John snorted. “ _You_ sweep into a room and everyone sane goes running. And then you got yourself a bloody great dragon. Of all the citizens of this country, we are the _last_ ones that could boost morale.”

“Mycroft disagrees,” said Sherlock savagely, now rubbing John’s neck.

“As do I,” called a loud female voice. Sherlock looked down to see a shortish woman with a straight cut fringe, picking her way through the courtyard in kitten heels and a restrictive skirt. A large field microphone gripped tightly in her hand, notepaper and pen in the other.

Sherlock swung his legs round either side of the dragon’s neck as John stepped forward a few places to greet the woman. Sherlock scowled his way through the introductions. She knew who he was, who John was, and he didn’t give a rat’s arse about who _she_ was. This was all highly inconvenient.

“So you prefer ‘John’ then?” the annoying reporter was saying. “I understand you used to go by ‘Watson’.”

“Yes,” replied John. “Watson is my official name, but my first two Captains liked to call me ‘John’. Everyone uses it now.”

John had lifted his left foreleg in a clear signal he wanted Sherlock off his back. With a huff of indignation, Sherlock dismounted as one would a horse, onto John’s leg before jumping down in front of the nosy woman.

“Ah!” she cried. “Captain Holmes. It’s a pleasure.”

“Is it?” Sherlock replied, ignoring her extended hand. John’s enormous head swung round and fixed Sherlock with a reproachful stare.

“’Sherlock’ will do,” he said, gathering up the cloth he had been using before ducking under John’s neck and striding off. The reporter watched him go, rather wrong-footed.  
“Don’t mind him,” said John. “He’s not too keen on reporters. There was a bit of interest in us after we solved a few high profile cases – particularly the Reichenbach painting one – he hated it.”

“How did you take your rise to fame?” she said, reverting back into reporting mode.

John mused for a moment before replying, “It worried me in regards to Sherlock. I told him we ought to be more careful. But I wouldn’t really call it ‘fame’ as such; we were only in the paper for a day or so. Unless after that Sherlock simply didn’t show me any more – I can’t exactly read them myself,” he smiled, showing her the four talons on his right foreleg.

At her lack of reaction besides a polite smile, John noted, “You don’t seem to be afraid of me.”

“Course she’s not,” butted in Sherlock, who had returned with a bucket of warm water and a sponge. “Her brother is in the Corps.”

“Really?” asked John just as the reporter said “How do you know that?”

Sherlock glanced at her. “Your shoes.”

She looked a halfway mix of flabbergasted and impressed as John inquired about her brother.

“Oh, he’s positioned in Scotland at the moment. Can’t remember his regiment. Flies on Securitas, she’s a Yellow Reaper.”

John nodded. “Yes, I’ve met her, I think.”

“Handy of Mycroft to find a reporter who’s not terrified of dragons,” said Sherlock, glowering as he squeezed out the sponge and began soaping down John’s withers.

“Hoping to get me to roar and scare her off?” John asked.

“Something like that.”

The reporter smiled to herself and quickly jotted down some notes in shorthand. The microphone was capturing the sound just fine, but she liked filling out her articles with more than just relaying conversation.

She wanted to capture the essence of her interviewees, wanted to relay this to her readership. From her brother she knew firsthand the opposition and fear the Aerial Corps still faced – perhaps, as commissioned, she would be able to do something to change that if the article was successful. And also perhaps finally get her first big promotion.

“John,” she said, and fierce, deep blue eyes met her own. “Could you tell me about your previous Captains?”

The dragon’s gaze became rather injured, and the reporter sensed that Sherlock, mostly hidden from her by enormous leathery wings, had frozen up.

“If that’s not too hard,” she said gently.

“No, its fine,” the dragon sighed. Behind him, Sherlock re-wetted the sponge and moved it in deep, calming circles along John’s side.

“My first Captain was Sarah; I met her straight from the egg. She was ... incredible. We trained so hard, mostly working on my aerial manoeuvring abilities. We wanted to be the best fliers in the Corps - and considering my parentage, we had a pretty decent chance.”

The reporter could see he was subtly leaning into Sherlock’s grooming. For comfort – or reassurance? She jotted it down.

“I turned out to be a bit smaller than expected – they’d hoped I’d be a heavy weight, or at least a large mid weight. Sarah had always had an interest in medicine; she’d studied it while waiting for me to hatch. So we became the quick response medical team.” John paused to breathe in deeply, licking the roof of his mouth in an effort to stop his words becoming thicker than they already were.

“We tended to the wounded in the midst of battle, human or dragon, didn’t matter. I loved it.” He stopped again, staring into the distance.

“Sarah was killed by enemy fire on June 25th, 1965. ” John said eventually. “I still have the scars on my shoulder.”

The reporter felt she should offer some words of condolence, but didn’t want to interrupt John at the risk of him refusing to talk further on the subject.

“Her daughter Mary, who was sixteen at the time, became my next captain. Which is standard practice in the Corps ... it’s easier to bond with someone who is experiencing the same pain, the same aching loss, as you are.”

The dragon was raking ditches in the dirt with his claws absent mindedly as he spoke. “I didn’t stay a surgeon with Mary; she loved warfare with a passion. We joined an aerial squadron with four other dragons and their captains. It was fantastic. But Mary stopped flying to look after her own family.”

“You didn’t want another captain after that?”

“No, none of Mary’s children were old enough and I couldn’t stand the idea of a captain who wasn’t from my family.”

“Not even from your crew?”

John shook his head. “A captain is – special. I don’t know if someone who isn’t in the Corps could understand. Plus my shoulder meant flying was becoming difficult. I retired to one of the breeding grounds.”

“How long were you there for?”

“Ten years. I met Sherlock ... two years ago - 2010.”

“John!” called Sherlock, who was cleaning his tail. “Do you have to tell her everything?”

John snorted. “That’s a bit rich, coming from you!” he said, and flicked his tail around just to be irritating. “You’re the king of too much information.”

This exchange resulted in a few more hurried notes in the reporter’s notebook. She was pleased at how John was starting to warm up to her.

“So which of your three captains has been your closest companion? Your favourite?” She asked.

Instantly John reared away, backing off with distress. He gave a startled and low, offended growl that reverberated through her. Sherlock had flung his sponge on the ground and marched up to her.

“Are you _insane?_ ” he roared, bearing down on her with anger sparking in his eyes. “How _dare_ you presume to ask John – absolutely moronic – I’ll kill Mycroft –“ Sherlock spun around, pacing circles in fury. The reporter wrung her hands as she tried to work out what to do to try and save the situation.

“Sherlock, it’s okay, she didn’t understand,” hissed John.

“I’m so sorry,” the woman was saying.

“Maybe we could take a short break? Five minutes?” John asked her. She quickly agreed and wandered off, murmuring about a coffee.

“Idiotic woman.” Sherlock snarled, picking up the sponge and rinsing it.

“She’s not that bad, Sherlock, she just made a mistake –“

“She _repels_ me.” Sherlock mashed the sponge into John’s ribs and began scrubbing furiously at the dirt caked onto the golden hide.

“Look, if you’re not going to wash me down properly, I’ll get someone else to do it,” said John.

“No. You won’t.” said Sherlock fiercely.

Sherlock had finished John’s side and was working on his wing joint and left shoulder, the scarred one, when he asked “Can we go flying after this?”

“What the hell has been the point of grooming me then?” John said in exasperation. “Besides, we’ve already spent five hours flying today.”

“That was boring patrol work. _And_ was with the crew. I meant just us.”

“Oh,” John said, and smiled down at his captain. “Of course we can.”

Sherlock smiled too, but spotting something behind John, converted it with alarming speed into a deep scowl. "That stupid reporter is back."

"Hello, John, Sherlock," she said, struggling to hold a steaming coffee cup and microphone in one hand. "I'm so sorry about before -"

John waved her apology away while Sherlock ignored her completely.

"Well then, John, could you tell me about the day you met Sherlock?" she asked, oblivious to the Captain's horror struck face.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as that insufferable woman asked after his own story, Sherlock realised exactly what kind of article was going to end up in the paper.

“No, John. Don’t answer her.” Sherlock said in a commanding tone. Turning onto the reporter, he scowled, “I won’t have you degrading my life’s work and achievements into some ridiculous romantic sop story for your pathetic readers. It’s bad enough having to listen to John embellish the specifics with sensationalist rubbish to other dragons. You will not write anything personal about us.”

“Sherlock, she’s _interviewing_ us. Of course it’s personal!” John said in exasperation. 

“She is only to report the facts. The data. No emotional drivel.” He said into the microphone. “We met January 31, 2010. Next question.”

“I was commissioned to write -” the reporter began but Sherlock stepped forward aggressively to cut her off.

“Oh, yes, what did my _dear_ brother ask you to do?” Sherlock said with sarcastic friendliness. John was glaring at Sherlock with an intensity that could make grown men wet themselves. 

“Stop being rude.” John admonished. “Or we’re not flying later.”

Sherlock looked appalled. Furiously, he grabbed the bucked at resumed his work cleaning John. The dragon rolled his eyes magnificently at this little display, and reassured the reporter that everything was fine. She nodded dumbly, too frazzled to do anything else. 

“I remember that day pretty well,” John said to move the interview past Sherlock’s immaturity – he was beginning to suspect Sherlock was testing to see what it would take to break the reporter. “It was the day after Sinew Day.” he continued.

“What day?” asked the reporter, and even Sherlock looked up from his work, interested. John flushed slightly.

“It’s what we call it in the breeding grounds. Every six months or so there would be a day for people and families to visit and see if they wanted to adopt us for whatever reason. It’s horrifically dull there, so many dragons off out if they can. And we named them ‘Sinew Days’ – after the last scrappy, unwanted bits of a carcass.”

“Did you participate in Sinew Days?” 

“No way,” John replied, voice wobbling slightly as Sherlock got to work on his neck. “And they used to restrict our food the day before so even the hesitant ones would show up. So I flew down to the feeding area the day after and spotted this guy,” he inclined his head in Sherlock’s direction, “arguing with the groundskeeper.”

“What about?” The reporter said as she scribbled down a description of the way Sherlock was carefully polishing his dragon’s scales, systematically clearing away any grime and checking for injuries. His tenderness with this task was harshly contrasted by the way he’d treated everything that wasn’t John, including herself and the sponge.

“Trespassing, I think. I was halfway through my sheep, watching the exchange, and Sherlock just stepped back, gave the groundskeeper a quick once-over, then said his sister was having an affair with his co-worker, he’d stolen five hundred quid in the past week, and...”

“...and that I knew he had a Greyling egg under his mattress. What a pathetic breed to steal.” Sherlock finished off.

“It was fantastic.” said John, delighting in the memory. “And then he just strode straight into the feeding area, not even remotely afraid of any of us.”

“I was examining you all,” Sherlock told him. “I was deducing your history and capabilities. Nothing I was seeing was telling me to be wary.”

“Did you spot John straight away?” the reporter asked, nervous at her first question directed solely at Sherlock. 

John laughed; an unusual huffing sound that wasn’t remotely human. “He barely looked at me. Was too busy waving his phone around and muttering about the lack of signal. So I walked over and told him which hill was the best place for service. He looked a bit surprised. Thanked me, at least. More than I get now.” John teased. Sherlock flicked water at him.

“What was your first impression of John?” came a second question for Sherlock, who this time answered it for himself.

“I saw at once he came from a strong lineage. His confirmation is close to faultless, which is more than can be said for 99% of British dragons. I inspected him closer, and he let me pick up his wings. They immediately marked the quality of the creature before me.”

The woman looked over at John’s wings, slightly perplexed.

“Six spines,” Sherlock announced, extending his arm to point them out. “Note the length of them too, their shape. See the ball and socket wing joints. His colouration; a uniform golden yellow with no abhorrent markings, which is turning slightly translucent as he ages. He could only have come from the crossing of a Chinese Celestial, and a British Anglewing.”

The reporter’s pen flew over the page as she attempted to relay the energy and passion now frothing out of the man in front of her as he dashed around his dragon, pointing out John’s anatomical features that gave him such intense aptitude in aerial acrobatics, including the ability to hover. Even John’s smaller size, which was unfavourable to the Corps, inspired praise from Sherlock for giving his dragon agility. 

“His sire was indeed the Celestial Temeraire,” Sherlock said. “And his granddam was Obversaria, an Anglewing widely regarded as one of the greatest fliers ever seen in the Corps.”

“How did the other dragons react to your saying all this?”

“Oh, I kept all this to myself.” Sherlock said. “I only remarked to John that he’d been in war, been to battle. Seen some trouble. Then I asked if he’d like to see some more.”  
“I said, ‘Oh God, yes,” John interjected. “And then he jumped onto my back, looped his scarf around my neck as a handle, and told me to get going.”

“You said, ‘I don’t even know your name!’” Sherlock cried.

“Well _you_ said, ‘The name’s Sherlock Holmes, and there’s going to be a murder in less than eight minutes unless you jump into the air.’”

“Which you did,” Sherlock said smugly, scratching the area behind John’s head.

“John, I have a question for you, but in light of our previous difficulty I’ll understand if you do not wish to answer it.”

“...Okay,” said John, Sherlock now stroking his muzzle protectively. 

“Could you explain, from your perspective, the nature of your relationship with your captains, both the two previous ones and Sherlock?”

A stunned silence followed these words. Sherlock looked murderous. 

“The public, for a large part, don’t understand human/dragon relationships. I thought this would be a good opportunity.” The reporter backtracked. “Some, for example, see them as pets.”

“Oh, well know all about the public’s misunderstanding.” Sherlock said in disgust. “John is not a _pet_.” he spat.

“Really.” said the reporter coolly, clicking her pen. “Then explain.”

John smiled at this. She was clearly learning how to deal with Sherlock.


End file.
